2002 March

Linux Packages
http://www.linuxpackages.net/
Deveren Bennett
“I’ve been a long time slack fan till just recently. I’ve simply run out of
time to keep things up to day and some of the newer programs are getting
tricky to install. Last night I ran across a new site I thought you might
be interested in. http://www.linuxpackages.net/.
“These guys are fellow slack [...]

XPlanet [283 Kb]
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/xplanet/xplanet-nomap-0.93.tar.gz
http://xplanet.sourceforge.net/
“Xplanet is a C++ program which is similar to xearth, but draws the earth or another planet with user-supplied maps. It renders the image in the root window or an X window. Azimuthal, Mercator, Mollweide, orthographic, and rectangular projections can be drawn, and clouds can be optionally overlaid.”

Swap
Windows users are familiar with the concept of swap files - the process by which hard drive space is used in lieu of RAM when RAM is maxed out by another process. Linux uses swap space, as well for this paging process.
While considerably slower than physical RAM, the use of swap files allows users to [...]

Session Management
Most Penguin Shell readers, having made the conversion from Windows, are clearly GUI afficianodos. It’s a well-known fact that, despite great gains in the past few years, window managers and GUI applications in Linux still have a bit to go before catching the Redmond Giant. Even at that, there are alreay some things that [...]

Today we start down a new path in the Distro II with a review of Libranet. We’ll start this guided tour
As you well know, I have no particular aversion to text-based installers. I cut my teeth on text installs before graphical installs were useful or practical. Libranet uses such an installer. The developers of this [...]

Tech Support
http://www.linuxmall.com/entertainment/?1,7
Late at night, when you’ve been slaving away for hours to understand the subtelties of the grep command, it’s probably time for some comic relief. You’ll find it in this section of the LinuxMall.com site - tech support stories that will make you laugh out loud. Of course, no one will attest to the authenticity [...]

Gentoo Linux
Unearthed by Kevin Anderson
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/build.html
http://www.gentoo.org/
“I have recently discovered an extremely great new linux distribution, named
Gentoo Linux. (http://www.gentoo.org/) It is more or less a freebsd style
system placed on the Linux kernel. At installation, you boot up from the
cdrom straight to a prompt, and proceed to compile your WHOLE system after
getting networking and disks [...]

What The Heck Is That?
Linux is full of little mysteries just waiting for your discovery. Sometimes those mysteries are uncovered with a full description, as in man or info. Sometimes they reveal themselves in the which command. Maybe best of all are the answers that come in a single concise line.
The whatis command does exactly [...]

Graphical Text Editors
Though my personal preference for text editing is vi, there are a number of viable graphical text editing options in all the common Linux desktop environments. Today, we’ll look at some of the options in both Gnome and KDE.
Easily the most popular text editor in the Gnome environment is Gedit. Gedit is a [...]

Do you read? There’s a good chance you do, and that you read a lot. Digging into your favorite operating system often requires it, what with man pages, user forums, HowTos and, of course, Penguin Shell as the most fertile basis for learning the subtelties of Linux. It makes sense, then, that Penguin Shell should [...]

Linux in the UK
http://www.linux.org.uk/
UK Linux is a site covering all the Linux goings-on in Great Britain. This site contains the usual Linux information - HowTos and documentation, a summary of Linux distributions, etc. - with an approach that could be termed an online Linux User Group (LUG). Especially well done is the page of UK [...]

mkCDrec [2.2 Mb]
http://mkcdrec.ota.be/project/mkCDrec_v0.6.1.tar.gz
http://mkcdrec.ota.be/
“mkCDrec (Make CD-ROM Recovery) makes a bootable (El Torito) disaster recovery image, including backups of the Linux system to one or more CD-ROM(s) (multi-volume sets). Otherwise, the backups can be stored on another disk, NFS disk, or (remote) tape. After a disk crash or system intrusion, the system can be booted from [...]

Environment Variables
The concept of environment variables in Linux is similar to that of Windows. Programs that are accessed frequently or that may need to run without user interaction are placed placed in “the path” - a directory that’s denoted by the paths in the environment variable. This allows users or the system to execute the [...]

Connecting via DHCP
I’m a cable modem user. My first provider was TCI. Then it became AT&T. Now, it’s Mediacom. All these changes have occurred without so much as touching the line that runs into my home. It’s obviously an ustable world, this business of providing high-speed Internet access to homes.
Aside from cutting my bandwidth and [...]

Several days of Windows problems have put the Linux newsletter behind. How can that be?
It’s pretty simple, really. Since I’ve been changing distributions so frequently, I’ve come to rely once again on Outlook as the regular repository for my mail. It’s easier than backing up all the 500+ daily emails I receive prior to installing [...]

Wireless Linux LAN
Unearthed by Grim
http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Jean_Tourrilhes/Linux/
Today’s Click is a HowTo for setting up and administering a wireless Linux local area network. This is a comprehensive document, covering hardware, drivers and setup. The author has posted HTML, PostScript and PDF versions of the HowTo on his site. It’s a document that was created, in his words, ” [...]

ClarkConnect [120 Mb]
Unearthed by Michael Mitchell
ftp://alamo.pointclark.net/clarkconnect-0.9.1/iso/clarkconnect-0.9.1.iso
http://www.clarkconnect.org/
“The ClarkConnect software transforms a standard PC into a full-featured Internet server/gateway. In other words, it connects your local area network (LAN) to a DSL or cable modem Internet connection. The software is based on Red Hat, so you can install thousands of software packages (RPMs) on your server!”

Checksumming Files
If you’ve spent the time to download a file, then found it to be corrupt when installing, you’ve experienced a frustration that all computer users eventually face. Or, maybe you’ve spent hours downloading the latest .iso image only to be unable to burn the image to disc due to file corruption. As a Linux [...]

Resolving X Application Problems
I’ve had applications in X that just won’t run consistently. They’re pretty few and far between, but annoying nonetheless. If this has happened to you, here’s a great solution for getting to the root of the problem.
Open your ~/.bashrc file and add the following line:
    alias startx=”startx >~/.Xlog 2>&1″
This logs all the actions [...]

Today we’re going to add an interesting and informative twist to Distro II - the inclusion of a security audit on the default install of ELX Linux. I’ll be conducting an identical audit on all future distributions included in Distro II. Given the results I have to share with you today, I may even go [...]